After the latest American rampage through three Afghan villages in the Pajway district of Qandahar on March 11, US President Barack Obama issued the following statement: “This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan.”
As Palestinians marked the 48th anniversary of the massacre of Qibya a few weeks ago, they provided another reminder of the blood-soaked history of Ariel Sharon, Israel’s current prime minister.
The massacres of Palestinian women and children in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps nineteen years ago, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, brought the camps into public consciousness.
Palestinians across the occupied territories marked the first anniversary of the intifada against Israel on September 28, setting off another round of fierce Israeli blood-letting that cost more than 40 lives in the next two weeks.
With Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Beirut, at the helm, the “only democracy in the Middle East” has gone berserk. It is using US-supplied Apache helicopters against Palestinian activists, in complete disregard of human life. Amer Hudeiri, a Hamas activist, was martyred on August 5 when Israel fired two missiles at his car in the West Bank town of Tulkerm...
Palestinian and Israeli negotiators opened separate talks with US officials in Washington on November 19, the first stage of a new effort to restart the ‘peace process’ that was stalled by the launching of the Al-Aqsa intifada at the end of September.
Had they been animals, there would be loud protests in the streets of almost all western capitals to save them. Leaders of the ‘civilised’ west would be vexed over this tragedy and call it an affront to humane values.
The Beni Mousses killings, however, pale into insignificance in comparison with the August 29 slaughter near Rais, 40 kms south of Algiers, when an estimated 300 people were hacked to death.
